Lost Souls
by The wander
Summary: This a retelling of My old story I want to be a cowboy it hopes of completeing it. What if Xander had been arrested for blowing up the High school and instead of going on his summer trip other things happen. its a dark story. rated M for to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Xander sat in his new old car, frowning. His uncle Rory had given it to him so he could get out of Sunnydale for the summer. He had turned the ignition off, but the car had just kept on running.

"Some car," Xander muttered. In typical Harris luck, the car was a lemon – Hell, the car was the king of all lemons. But it was his ticket away from the Hellmouth for the summer. Finally, the motor stopped. He looked around street to see if anyone had seen him. Buffy and Willow were supposed to meet him, but there was no sign of his female friends.

"Typical."

Xander had noticed over the last few years that Willow had been drawing away from him. And while he understood it, he didn't really like it. She was his friend first. But in every conversation, in every fight, she always took Buffy's side. And while he knew he was not always right (in fact, he knew that a lot of his decisions were based on what he wanted things to be, instead of what he knew was right), he really couldn't blame her.

But it still hurt.

Slamming the car door closed caused a rain of rust from under the door. Looking close at the bottom of the door, he could see that while the paint job his uncle had put on the car looked good, the metal underneath was noting but rust and maybe some bonding putty.

ྭ

Standing back up and looking around again, he put a smile on his face. It was a good day. No matter what happened, it was a good – no, make that a great - day.

The sun was shining, people were laughing and the Mayor was dead. The Mayor had made the change from evil human to evil demon to dead demon in a matter of hours. And Xander felt proud of the fact that he had been a part of it. HE had saved the world again. HE had lead the class in a fight for the world and won.

"Fun Day." His last bit of free time with his friends. Next year, the girls would be in college, while he would be a part of the working world. As long as he could find a job, that is. So he was going to enjoy this, the last stand of friendship. The next time they saw each other they would be adults. A part of the adult world.

A sad smile was on his face as he walk up the walk to Buffy's home.

He stopped his hand was just inches from the door as he was going to knock, when he felt it.

Danger.

Something wasn't right.

"FREEZE! FBI!" a voice called out from behind him, just as the Summers' front door flew open and men poured out of the home.

Xander glanced down, his chest was almost glowing red as all the targeting lasers pinpointed his chest. The next thing he knew, he was laying flat on the ground, with at least a half-dozen men leaning on him as they handcuffed him.

Looking around, he could see people now peeking out of windows. As his eyes contacted each one, they would draw back into their home.

But the ones that hurt the most were from the Summers home.

Standing in the front window stood Buffy, holding on to Willow, and standing behind them was Joyce. They didn't draw back, and he knew that they couldn't help him. At least, not without letting secrets out that shouldn't be revealed. Secrets that no one wanted to know.

"Alexander Harris," one of the agents yelled down at him, "you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent... "

But the rest was lost to him. He could still see Willow crying now, Buffy mouthing something, but he couldn't make it out. His world had lost all meaning.

Then a sliver of light lit his world - his girls were in trouble.

He knew then what he needed to do: protect his girls.

He let a smile slide across his face as he looked at them. Something to make it seem that everything would be ok.

Even though he knew it wouldn't.

Later, Sunnydale P.D. Headquarters

Xander sat in a cell, alone.

No one had come to see him. His mom and dad both refused to come down to the jail. His only visitors so far had been FBI agents, each pulling their version of good cop, bad cop, worse cop. One had almost seem ready to hit him one time. But after looking into the eyes of Angelus, no mere mortal would scare him.

They wanted to know who else was with him? Who had helped him?

Helped him? No one. He would not tell them anything.

Buffy was the Slayer, and needed to be out in the world saving it.

And his Willow? She wouldn't make it in jail, much less prison. For all Willow's big talk, she was too nice to be placed into that world.

But him? Who would miss him? The girls and Giles were the heroes.

Him? He was nothing but a sidekick. A nobody.

So he would take the blame for them.

That would be his little part to save the world.

Hours later

"Mr. Harris, please tell us why you did it," Agent Mulder asked in a low voice.

"I didn't do anything."

While Xander knew he would take the blame, he didn't want to seem like he taking the fall for someone. If they thought that, the Agents would start looking for others.

So for now, he would do what he could to keep his sisters safe.

"We have you on tape," Mulder pointed a remote at a TV in the counter, and the screen clicked on and a tape started. "This is a Security tape from a security camera across the street from the school."

The tape clearly shown Xander getting out of a van and rolling drums into the school. Also, he appeared to be talking to someone who wasn't there.

"Still not saying anything?" the Agent asked. "Who were you talking to?"

Xander just sat there looking at the table top.

"Alexander, please, I want to help you. But you have to talk. The bomb killed a lot of people. You could get the death penalty."

"I can't say anything."

"Can't or won't? Who else are you protecting?"

"I was alone."

"No, you were not. The bomb was put together by someone with Military training. We found a rocket launcher hidden in your room. How did you get that?"

"Not talking."

"Alex," Mulder said trying a different track, "we found your fingerprints on the launcher, along with others. Who are they?"

Xander just sat there.

"Ok," the Agent drawing himself up again, "what about the fingerprints we got from the school. Fresh ones. But they were of people that have been dead for up to six months or longer.

"What happened?"

Outside the interrogation room.

Agent Mulder's partner watched the interrogation with some of the local police. She noticed the officers look at each other when the fingerprints came up. They knew something.

"That Harris boy was always going to be trouble," one of the older officers said.

"What do you mean?" the female agent asked.

"Well, we'd get three or four calls a week to his house. His parents would be drunk and fighting usually."

"The boy's medical record shows he had been beaten, just about everyday. He had new bruises every time he was seen, sometimes even broken bones. And yet you still did nothing?"

"He's a punk," One of the older officers replied. "Hell, his whole family was a waste of space - drunks, deadbeats, and worse. The boy was just one step away from street scum."

Scully was appalled; these officers were just one step above the scum that she had arrested. She looked around the room. This had to be the worse police force that she had ever seen. She couldn't say they were on the take but it seemed like that they did get their orders from something besides the Law.

"Calm down, Agent Scully. We had orders not to interfere with that house that came from the Mayor's office."

"What? Why would the Mayor care about him?"

"Don't know." But the man's voice clearly said he knew just what was going on and wasn't about to tell her.

"Just that that boy could just about do anything and we were told to look the other way. He was always in a fight, somewhere. Him and those girls he hung out with could be found wandering the streets at all hours. I even found him sleeping in the middle of Main street, one time."

"Just what was going on in that house?" Scully almost whispered to herself.

Buffy's house

Willow and Buffy were sitting around, still in shock. The TV was broadcasting a news report of Xander's arrest.

"The troubled teen is reported to have killed at least 23 people in the Graduation bombing. His parents have not made a statement at this time, and the police have only said that they have a subject under arrest. But we did get an interview with a student at the school who told us that Alexander was a slacker who skipped class and was always in fights. There were even rumors that he was a homosexual and threaten the star of the football but "outing him". And it was for that reason he committed this terrible crime."

"What is happening?" Willow said softly. She had been crying non-stop since she had witnessed Xander's arrest.

"I don't know, but we have to do something," Buffy insisted. "Xander didn't do anything wrong."

Giles walked in, having been at the Police station all day.

"Giles, what's going on?" Buffy asked, as her mom also walked in to see what Giles had to say.

"I talked to an Officer there. It seems that Xander is not talking to anyone. He is apparently taking the blame for everything."

"Well, I'm going to go down there and get him out," Buffy announced as she got up and started to the door. " He didn't do anything wrong!"

"Buffy, STOP!" Giles called to his Slayer. "I have been in contact with The Council and they are doing everything they can to cover for US. But not him. They will throw us to the wolves, and then quietly have you silenced and wait for the next Slayer to be Called if we interfere with this.

"According to them, this is a Mortal concern. Xander knew what he was doing. At least, that is what they are saying."

"What?!" Willow yelled at him. "Xander is our friend! We can't leave him in there. We have to get him out!"

"Of course, Willow. He is very dear to us all. But the Council doesn't see it that way. As far as they are concerned, he is a normal boy, one that shouldn't have gotten involved with us in the first place."

"What? All of these children are normal," Joyce said, tears in her eyes. These children had grown dear to her over the few short years that she had moved to Sunnydale, becoming the large family that she had always wanted, but which Hank hadn't.

"No, Joyce. They are not normal. Willow is a novice Witch, Buffy is a Slayer, Oz is a Werewolf and I am a Watcher. The Council considers that they are a bonus, a benefit to the Slayer. But Xander has no useful skills in their estimation, are at least nothing at couldn't easily be replaced.

"So, he is on his own as far as the Council is concerned."

"But we have to do something," Buffy insisted.

"And we shall. I am using some of my personal money to get him a good Lawyer. We'll see how it proceeds from there."

Sunnydale Police Station.

"Mulder, something is not adding up here."

"What do you mean, Scully?" he asked from across the desk as he finished up his report.

"Well, where's the Mayor's body?"

"What of it?" Mulder asked looking up from his laptop.

"Where is it?"

"It could have been vaporized in the blast," Mulder suggested.

"There would have been something left. The blast wasn't that large," the redhead explained, looking over the blast report. "There is something going on here. This boy was raised in an abusive home, he was in and out of the hospital most of his life. We have reports of him roaming the streets, and in gang fights. After we took his fingerprints, we got numerous hits on unsolved cases. Everything from breaking and entering to grave robbing. You remember the rocket launcher from his room? It was from the local National Guard base. It was stolen by someone who looks just like Harris. Then when we talk to his peers, other than a few of the wealthy class mates, they all they can say he's a nice guy. Always there for you. Stands up for the little guy. It just doesn't add up."

"Scully, we've heard that before many times before. No one wants to believe that their next door neighbor could kill anyone. But it's always the guy next door to someone that DOES kill someone."

"I know, but this kid is not a murderer."

"I don't think he is either.", Mulder replied nodding his head.

"Then why –"

"He knows who did this. And the big question is 'Why?' The Mayor was very interested in him and some of his friends. Did you know that the Mayor has no record of his birth, and he has apparently never been out of office in 100 years?"

"Come on -"

"Here, look at this," he said as he pushed a book of old newspaper photographs over to her.

Looking at the photos, she saw a progression of photos of Mayor Wilkins, from around the early 1890's 'til 1998.

"This is incredible."

"It is, isn't it?"

"And that boy is in the middle of it."

In the integration room

Xander sat looking from his lawyer to his parents. They had finely shown up a few hours ago. His dad was still a little red around the eyes from too much booze and not enough sleep.

"Just tell me who else was in on it. I can use that to get a better sentence. Maybe even get you off completely, if you point out someone who is a trouble maker that can take all the blame."

"No one helped me. I was on my own."

"No, you weren't. That gang of sluts helped you," Mrs. Harris said.

"Gang? We can work with that."

"It's ME!" Xander snapped, almost growling at both his parents and lawyer. "No one else was there! I did it alone!"

"No, son, you did it with a gang. Just get in front of the Judge and tell all about your friends that helped you, and you should get off."

"Ms. Morgan, I did it all alone. Just me."

"If you don't tell the Judge about your gang, you WILL go to prison," Lila Morgan promised him. "We at Wolfram & Hart can only do so much."

"I did it. No one else was there; no one else was part of this."

Later that day

Willow and Buffy had just left. They had fought and fought with Xander, insisting that they were going to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they might. They were not letting Xander do this. He had finally talked them into letting it happen the way he wanted. Besides, considering what the Council would do to help, which was nothing, it would put people in danger.

Buffy was the Slayer and needed to be free. And Willow wouldn't be able to help if she was in prison with him, leaving Buffy alone to fight the good fight.

He was alone in this. The expendable one.

It was a bitter truth for them, but it was still a truth.

As soon as they had gone, he was taken in front of a Judge, where the Judge asked him for his plea. He didn't say anything, merely looked blankly at him. His lawyer tried to get him to say something, but Xander just looked out the window.

He had known that one day he would lose the good fight, but he always thought it would be a monster that got him, not this.

But he would take this, just as he would take anything to help Buffy.

Whether it was a claw, sword or jail time, he would take it.

So long as she was free.

As long as the world turned.

As long as he wasn't forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

Lila Morgan stood off to the side of the squad room, waiting. She watched as the FBI moved around the room. Each doing there little FBI jobs, writing reports, making phone calls. But her attention was focused on the red headed woman, and her male partner. Those two had given her firm a headache or two over the last three years. Mostly they were UFO hunting, but lately they had started to fall into her sphere of influence. And having to help out that cigarette smoking ass was bad enough but to now deal with those two stuck up agents. It was almost too much to bear.

Her plan was failing. The boy would never turn on his friends. The senior partners told her that they wanted the Slayer out of the way, by any means. And this was just to perfect an opportunity to pass up. One word from the boy and she would have had thrown that blonde teenie bopper to the wolves. But no, he wouldn't open his damn mouth. Well if he wouldn't help her. He needed to be removed by any means. She didn't have time to deal with loose ends. She turned to look at the police officers sitting at there desks. Then her eyes fell upon Stein. He would be Prefect.

She smiled as she walked up to the large man.

"Officer.", Lila said in her nicest voice. The one she had used to wheedle any man she had met into do what she wanted.

"Ms. Morgan." Stein replied shortly. He had seen the lawyer around her before. Usually working a case to protect one of his fellow officers when some asshole decided they could make some money off of them, by calling police brutality or abuse or some other made up crime. It turned his stomach to see such a honest woman as this defending this punk. While good officers such as himself had to defend their actions to a bunch of out of town Feds. Ever since they brought that Harris Kid in, the FBI agents have been going over everything with a fine tooth comb. Which in his mind was a waste of time. Just take the punk out behind the station and shoot him as he was trying to escape, then no more paper work problems. But no those two were looking into everything.

"Been a long hasn't it? The Walker case I think it was?" Lila said still smiling, "To bad about what going to happen soon." shaking her head.

"What do you mean?" Stein asked turning to look at the woman full on.

"Well," Lila said smiling down at the officer, "If Harris makes it to trial, I have to look for any defense I can. I will have to call in witnesses. And that would be his friend here. Maybe even some of you fine men working on the force. Now if that happened I would have to point out all the problems that are going on here. Maybe even make someone else look bad. Maybe even bad enough to be fired. And once that happened they would no longer be protected from the... Shall we say Darker sides of this town." Stein looked around nervously. "Now IF something were to happen I sure no one here would be blamed by that. If it happens before he goes to trial. Oh, there might be someone looking over the case, but in a few weeks it COULD all go back to normal around here."

Stein looked up at the woman. An nodded his head. He understood.

"I don't know about you but I need to take a break." The large man stood up, "See you Ms Morgan."

"Later officer." Lila let the smile fall from her face as the man walked away. It was just to easy.

"Still holding to your story?" Sculley asked. As she walked into the holding cell area.

"What story?" Xander replied putting on his best innocent smile.

Sculley shook her head looking at the boy.

"I know." Sculley said looking at the boy.

"Yeah?" Xander asked raising his eyebrows. "I know stuff too."

"You couldn't have done this alone." The red head said, "You needed help just getting some of the materials into the school. Why don't you come clean? Save yourself."

"Agent," Xander replied, "Have you ever been part of something. Something so important, that nothing else mattered."

"What could be that important that getting out of here?" Sculley asked shaking her head, "There nothing life an death going on here. This town is just a small down in the middle of no where. Your friends? They left you to hang. No one came to see you but two of your classmates, and your high school Liberian."

"Word of advice," Xander said his voice dropping and his eyes darkening, "leave them alone."

Then just as fast the darkness moved from his eyes. So fast Sculley wasn't even sure it was there.

Then she noticed the boys eyes focus in on her chest with an intense look. Now as a women she was used to catching men checking her out. But most of the men she had caught would look fast then away, she had even seen the looks her partner threw her way every now and then. But there was just something unsettling with this look.

"Agent Scully?" Xander asked, "Are you true believer?"

Scully's hand raised to the small gold cross at her throat. It was a gift from her mother.

"Yes."

"Do you happen to have another cross?" Xander asked, the police had taken everything from him when they locked him up, and he felt naked with at least a cross.

Scully reached into her jacket pocket.

"I cant give it to you." she replied. Rules were rules. The rosary could be used as a weapon. So it was on the banded lists.

"I need a cross." Xander told her.

"I cant. I'm sorry." And she really was. If anyone needed help right now was this boy.

Xander kneeled down at the bars. Tears in his eyes. Sculley walked up to him. Every maternal instinct calling out to her. But as she closed on the cell, Xander moved. She felt his hands slide across her ass then her breasts. Smiling into her face.

He jumped back still smiling as the woman instinctively tried to slap him.

"Hey," Xander said with his hands behind his back. "Might be my last time to touch a woman. Might as well make it a good looking one."

Sculley fumed. She turned and stormed out of the cell block.

Once the door closed behind her. Xander pulled his hands from behind his back. Letting his hand open were the agents rosary came into sight.

He looked at the door to the cells that the Sculley had walked out of. He smiled again at the though of how nice it had felt running his hands over her body.

But he was equal as happy that the agent was so busy with outrage of his groping her that she failed notice him pulling the cross from her jacket.

"At least I wont be defenseless tonight." Xander thought as he looked around the cell, "Now Weapons."

Stein looked at the cop manning the camera room. Then reached over to turn off one of the cameras.

"You didn't see anything." the detective told the junior officer. Who only nodded his head, he had learned early on that you didn't cross the higher ups in the department. Not unless you want to get a call one night and have no back up. He shuddered at the thought of the last man that had happen to.

Stein then pulled out his cell phone.

"Now."

It was close to midnight when something woke Xander. He had heard something. A clang? Maybe a click but he wasn't sure. After looking around his cell to make sure he was alone. He then looked up at shelving over his bunk. The clear plastic cups were still were he put them. Then after letting his eyes scan the cell one more time he slowly let himself sink make into sleep. Not noticing that the light on the security camera had turned off.

Xander came awake as he was pulled from his bunk. The next think he knew he was on the ground sliding into the bars. Dazed the first thing he saw as he pulled himself up was a uniform. A Sunnydale P.D. uniform. Then he saw the yellow eyes. He would have screamed if he had breath in his lungs. Almost whimpering as the vampire pulled him up.

"The slayers lap dog." it snarled. Then it slammed him into the bars. Xander felt his head almost bounce off the bars, then he was flying again. Slamming down in the bunk. Almost bouncing back off and to the floor.

"Dinner time!"

"Uh," Xander gasped frantically, "Couldn't we order pizza?"

"No," the vampire growled, walking over to stand over Xander, "Your all the snack I need."

Xander was terrorfied, he looked frantically around the room. This was usually the time that Buffy would show up...

Anytime now. Buffy would be pulling the vampire off of him.

Were the hell was Buffy at? Xander scrambled mind couldn't figure out were his Slayer pal was. It only knew that he was going to die.

Slowly it sank in that she wasn't coming. And that he was going to die.

Then it stuck him. He didn't want to die and if he want to get out this he would have to do something. He would have to fight back.

"I kind of like nuts myself." Xander told them vampire, then he balled his fist up and struck out as hard as he could. Straight into the crotch of the vampire. Xander almost flinched with sympathetic pain as the vampires testicles were smashed flat under the impact.

The Vampire screamed out loud enough that the cops out side the door flinch. Then smile at each other. No way was that kid going to bring out anything about the town now.

Xander looked down at the vampire. Nothing in the cell could be used as a stake, or anything to cut off its head. He couldn't even run away as the vampire closed the cell door as it came in.

Looking back up at the cups. He then remembered what Buffy had did to one vampire before. He smiled. Pulling up the cup. He could feel the rosary moving around in the water.

"Man," Xander smiled, "You look thirsty."

And with that he poured the water down the screaming vampires throat. Smoke poured up from were the water splashed on the creatures skin. Then the cross and water slid down. It screamed again. Its eyes wide. Then it screamed again as it turned to dust.

Xander fell back on to his cot. Gasping. Locked in a with a vampire, and he won.

"Who the man?" Xander said quietly, with a small whooo.

Then he looked around the cell again. He noticed the light on the Camera was off. And he knew that someone here had set him up. Someone in power that didn't like him. Stein.

Lucky the fat detective hadn't sent more than one Vampire after him. Xander thought as he rubbed his neck, feeling for soar spots. Finding no really bad damage he looked up and said, "Thank you god."

The next day

Stein was still on duty the next morning when Ms Morgan arrived with the Marshals to take Harris down to LA for trial. He was happy the way things were going to play out. While it did make them look bad about the boy dying in his cell. It would be quickly pushed under the carpet. Some fast pay outs, and the boys parents would disappear. He knew the type of people they were. One whiff of some money they would be gone.

And without them pushing, the state would let it drop. And everyone could go back to their normal lives again.

He had waited in the hallway outside of the cells. Just waiting for him to be called in to help with the clean up. But no such call happened.

Ms. Morgan walked out. He cell phone to her ear. She gave the officer a disgusted look then walked out.

Then came Harris. A bruised and messed but still ok.

"What the hell?!" Stein said before he could catch himself.

Xander looked at the older cop.

"Better luck next time." Xander told the cop with a grin, one that he used to piss off everyone in power that he knew.

Three months later.

After everyone had fought about were the trial would take place was it a state or a federal mater, Xander had finally gotten to a court room.

And as Xander sat in the court room, in his new suit and tight shoes. He had came to one big conclusion. The trial was a joke. The Judge was the ring leader. Judge Micah Hornsby had been up for re-election before this trial, and it looked as if he was going to lose. To soft on crime. Now he had someone that the world could hate. A home grown terrorist. One he could throw the book at and no one would care. It was to bad that while the courts couldn't find anything linking him with any of the known terrorist groups. They did find enough strange dealings in his past to cause them to want to look closer. And closer was bad.

He had started not answering the lawyers questions. He had at first simple stuff. But soon that changed. Every statement he made was turned around on him or his friends. So he did the simple thing. He stopped answering. At first the judge just threaten him. But they had already told him they were going for the death penalty, so how could adding a few more years on top of what he was already doing going to make that much of a difference. Its not like they would dig him up and lock him in a cell again. At least he hoped not.

He was two months into the trail when he noticed that his lawyer was spending a lot of time talking to the Prosecution. And then he had heard she was pushing to get him locked up in the crazy house. That just didn't set well with him. Now he might be a ass sometimes. He might be a jerk. Hell, he would even go as far as saying he was an asshole. But he was NOT crazy. So even thought he was scared spit-less about going to the chair, there was no way would he be locked up in a nut house.

Once he found out about it he had gone to the Judge to get a new lawyer. But there was no way the man would do that. If he had it would moved the trial back to after the polling for his job. There was no way would he make it look like he was going soft on criminals right now, on top of that he had gotten an interview on 20/20 this week about the trial. So he refused the motion for a new lawyer. And told Xander to deal with it. It was then that it finally sunk in he was so told-ly fucked. Giles new Lawyer, a Matt somebody wasn't even allowed into the court room.

So while he was sitting in my new shiny cell. Morgan was getting her private meetings with the DA and Judge. It was after the last meeting he found out that she was most definably NOT on his side. Whose side she was on, he didn't know, her own more than likely. But she was setting him up. He could feel it. He was rubber room bound, at least that was what it looked like.

The only ray of light that he got in those early days was that he was not the biological son of Tony and Jessica Harris. He was a foundling they had adopted.

It was a lightness to his soul to find out that he wasn't a real Harris. But it still looked like he wouldn't have time to hunt down his really parents now. But still it was a nice thing to find out about.

As the trial went The Scoobies were called in, one at a time. Willow, sweetheart that she is, broke down in court and had to be walked out. She couldn't say anything to help hime. Every time she said something, the DA turned it around on her. So by the end of her statements, he was the next Jack the Ripper. And if it wasn't for Giles he honestly think she would have turned the DA into a radish or something.

And speaking of Ripper, Giles came in. He didn't say much that would help Him but didn't say anything that would hurt either. He tried, Xander could tell he honestly did try, but there was just too much against him.

Xander had some time to talk to Giles later. Xander found out the Council was cleaning up everything having to do with them. Not us, just them, me they would let swing.

"Should have let Oz bite me then, maybe I would be important enough to get out." Xander mumbled to himself after hearing that.

"Maybe if I had studied harder and got some book learning skills like Giles."Xander silently thought to himself after Giles had left. "Hell, who was I kidding. Never would have happened. He was just a loser like always."

Buffy and Ms Summers were at court as well, but they couldn't get much out of them. Looked like Buffy was going to slay the DA, once or twice. Because the DA had made it seem that when Buffy turned me down, I started to get into drugs. The Gangs on PCP thing came up once or twice, too. I just about fell out of my chair the first time I heard that one. Then, they brought up the Hyena, evidence about me eating the pig, Links with the others around Mr.Fluties death, How I was acting about that time.

Supposedly, I was working with the gangs to get into the school and I was seen driving around with O'Toole, the local troublemaker, before he disappeared. The rest of the Gang didn't understand what that part meant, but I did. A group of boys seen breaking and entering stores, and then they all disappear but me?

Even Giles had looked at him funny after that. That was when the dates in question hit Giles. The Hellmouth had opened that night. After the looks he gave Xander, maybe the rubber room wouldn't be so bad. At least he would have a nice bouncy wall to hit after Giles knocks him into next week. And to top it all off he could almost feel the glares from his girls after Giles talked to them. Man those rubber rooms sounded better and better.

That all stopped when a court clerk leaked it that he was going to get off. Get off? Being sent to insane asylum was getting off. The papers threw such a cloud in the the air that the judge finally came out said that was off the table. And that the state was looking for the death penalty or life in prison.

You know, when you know, I mean KNOW your going to die or never be free again. It changes you. But really the only thing in that time that really bother me was that I couldn't get snacks when I wanted them.

And sometimes looking at the world, and the people in it like Morgan and the judge and any number of humans he had met so far. He would wonder if it was really worth it.

But the looks from Ms. Summers was enough that he knew was doing the right thing. He was protecting her baby. And he knew she didn't want me to be hurt or go to jail over it. But as every parent would say, better someone else's child. It sucks but it's the truth. So he knew were he stood. His own mom and dad had stopped coming to the trials, later his uncle Rory had told him that they received a lot of money from someone and moved off somewhere. Just packed up in the middle of the night and were gone.

It wasn't a big blow to his defense but it was a start of it falling apart. So far Morgan was doing an ok job defending him. Not great by any imaginations but ok. She had thrown up enough smoke to at least look like he was a fool working for someone else. That he was harmless. Just easily lead.

And it was almost working, Until.

Private James Ackerson. He was stationed at the military base outside of Sunnydale. He remembered Xander from his little trip there. And that brought in the  
rocket launcher. That Xander had stolen for the Scoobies.

And then there were a whole list of people that saw Xander at the Mall when it was allegedly used to blow up a statue there. No one seems to remember that he didn't fire it. But at least five people claimed that they saw him doing just that. Then he knew someone was paying the witnesses. And that he was going to die. Morgan was still hammering on him about the others, that if they came forward or if he turned on them that he could get off. Maybe even out of jail in a few years. But there was no way that was going to happen.

Luckily, the day that Ackerson was in court, Cordy wasn't if he had recognized her there was no telling what would have happened.

Then came Special Agent Fox Mulder. He was the last nail in my coffin. His testimony was the most damning that there could be.

Within a few weeks the trial was over. Six months. And he finally knew how the rest of his life was going to play out.

He was sentenced to death. On top of a death sentence he was also given life in prison. Something about if he had gotten off of the death sentence that he would still have to spend the rest of his life in locked up.

But no matter what he wasn't going to be a free man again. Looking around the court room as he was taken away he realized. He was never going to laided again. He looked at all the women. And he was never going to able to touch one.

"Damn it." Xander muttered, "no snacks. And now no sex. God hates me."

"Alex, could we talk?"

Xander looked up at Fox Mulder as he walked up to his cell.

"I don't think you were alone in this. Just tell me who else was a part of this and we can work something out. You wouldn't have to die for them."

Xander just sat back watching the dark haired agent looking at him.

"Where are they? If they were such good friends, would they let you die for them?"

Still Xander said nothing, just a smile on his face, he knew what they would do for him, and maybe one day could get him out. Who knew. Giles might even be able to get the Council to help him. Maybe. . .

"Come on. You can't be willing to just take this alone. You just tell me who they were and I can get you a deal. You'd still be in prison but NO needle." Mulder almost begging.

"Agent Mulder, shut up, and leave me alone. You are starting to bother me, and you really don't want me to start bothering you."

"Look, son. I'm just trying to help you."

"Son? Did you call me Son? That's funny. Does the old bastard know you've been fucking my mom?"

"What?"

"Let's get something straight. I am not your son, your friend or anything else. And if I could, I would be beating your ass right now. You just got me sent to the chair, So get the hell out!"

Outside the cell block.

Scully looked up from a monitor as Mulder walked in.

"Got yourself a fan there, don't you?"

"Give it a rest. I thought I could get through to him. Looks like I can't."

"You can't help someone that doesn't want it."

Later that day.

The ride to the prison was long and dry. It was in the middle of a salt flat. Funny thing about it, it was only 3 miles from Sunnydale. He'd been out to the salt flats on a Class trip one time with Willow. Now it would be his home.

The Prison was huge. Wilkins Prison, named after the first warden, who later moved on, to found Sunnydale.

It was a Gothic structure. On the outside, it was smooth and foreboding, and inside it didn't get much better.

It was a dark place for the Soul. It also heald the record for the amount of inmates that kill themselves. A lot were suicide by guard; just pick a fight and wait for the Guards, then try to kill them. You usually end up dead. So you get your wish, you're out of here.

They cremate the bodies here, too. Not enough land to use, that wasn't covered in salt.

It was hell.

Then it got bad...


	3. Chapter 3

Wilkins Prison was the only one of its kind.

Due to treaties signed with, first the Spanish government, and then the Mexican Government, and lastly, the American, it was not under any direct government control.

It had also been placed on what was left of the Chumash tribal lands, and as long as the prison ran with at least a modicum amount of safety and no prisoners escaped, it was left to its own devises.

The prison would receive inmates from both the American penal system and the Mexican legal system, along with a few from the Native American tribes. Usually, it was a maze of legal loopholes and huddles to be sent here. But every so often, a trouble maker in a prison somewhere would go missing, only to turn up here.

Occasionally, a few Mexican nationals would turn up here as well.

And some times, just some times, they would just disappear. And of the ones that disappeared, most of those could be tracked back to Wilkins, the most corrupt prison in the known world.

Day One.

Xander looked around the yard as he and his fellow inmates were duck walked off the bus that drove them out into the desert to the prison.

It was a stone affair, built on an outcropping of bedrock, that shot out of the salt flats that surrounded it. From the outside, it looked like an old gothic church, or even a castle from one of Giles' old books.

As soon as he and the rest were inside a shaded area, the guards came out, flat eyed and cold-looking. The prisoners were lined up, still in their clinking shackles, to face the guards as the Warden walked out to meet them.

"I am Janice Yates," the woman told the men. "For all of your time here, I am your goddess. What I say goes. Any decisions I make are good. And if you cross me, you will not have time to enjoy it before my wrath will fall upon you."

And with that the blonde woman turned and walked away, heading back into the Admin building.

Xander turned to look at the men chained to him. While most of the prisoners were to sent general population, he and few others would sent to the Castle.

The Castle was the heart of the prison. It was so named because of its outward appearance, which wouldn't have been out of place in any fantasy movie. The building was sitting on a single piece of bedrock that stood taller that the rest of the rock on this small lump of hell.

It had been the original prison. But now it served as death row and the lifers' section.

It was the place that the worse of the worse were sent.

As soon as the Warden was out of sight, the Chief of the prison guards started to call out names.

With each name went a destination, and the prisoner was sent to stand off to one side on painted stripes on the floor. Each color lead off to the different buildings that would hold the men for the duration of their stay.

When the Chief hit his name, the large man stopped dead, looking up at him.

"Harris?" The man asked softly walking up to him.

"Uhm," Xander stammered. "Yeah?"

And before the young man could move, a night stick was jammed painfully into his stomach.

As Xander gasped for breath, the large man looked him over.

"My brother told me about you, punk," the Chief said.

As Xander looked up at him then the name on the guards jacket seemed to come into focus.

"Stein"

"Ah, Shit." Xander said again as another blow smashed into him.

"Watch your mouth," Stein said, smiling.

It was right then that Xander knew – this wasn't going to be a fun stay.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Buffy slowly limped up to her mom's home.

Following her were the rest of the Scoobies. Last night, they had faced their biggest big bad - Adam. It had been a very close thing, but in the end they had pulled it out. Between her Slayer-ness and Willow's witchy-ness, and Riley's men they had saved the day.

As she walked up to the door, she looked at her friends and smiled. No one was dead, and no one was hurt. Or at least seriously hurt, that was. A lot of the soldiers and scientist were killed before Buffy could pull off one of her at the last second saves.

"Mom, I'm home!" Buffy called out as she pushed open the door to her moms home. And after a moment's thought, she added, "With guests!"

But she received only silence in return. Only the sound of the tv could be heard.

Walking into the living room, she saw her mom standing still and pale faced as she watched the tv. Buffy turned toward the tv, and came to a stop herself.

*News Flash*

"This Roman Hilton," the serious faced reporter told his viewers. "Today is a tragic time for the families of the Correction Officers and workers at Wilkins' Supermax. A riot is going on I speak to you."

The man paused to let that sink into his viewers while behind him video played out on the wall.

"This footage was shot from our own new helicopter before the air space was cleared by the state police."

On the video, the middle yard of the prison could be seen, with smoke come from tear gas containers and small fires here and there. Smoke also poured from broken windows and men running were seen running around throwing things at cops while the cops returned fire. Bodies could also be seen all over the ground, most in the orange jump-suits that the prisoners wore, but a few uniforms of the guards could be seen mixed up with them.

"At this time, an unknown number of prisoners are dead. Twenty-three guards and thirty members of the staff are unaccounted for, as well as twelve teens from the 'Scared Straight' program. Unconfirmed rumors state that one or two prisoners are holding the teens and staff in the chapel. But as of now, that is unconfirmed.

"The prison is the home of some of the worst killers in the state. The most famous of whom is the Sunnydale Bomber, Alexander Harris. You may remember that he was responsible for the Bombing of the Sunnydale High school, killing at least thirty students and parents, as well as the beloved and respected Principal of the high school and the Mayor of the town. We will be following the story and will break in on our regularly programming as news becomes available."

"Xan –" Buffy whispered. She felt Willow's hand slid into hers, both watching the tv as it flipped back over to the regularly programmed soap opera.

They both had slowly stopped visiting Xander over the last year. It had got harder and harder for the duo to see the changes that had came about their friend. The friendly looks and the quick smile had faded, and the tattoos had started to show up. A hardness in his eyes that they had never seen had also shown up, with bruises and scars that he never explained about. They just couldn't stand to watch the slow death of their friend.

Riley stood to the side, watching his girlfriend and her best friend as they both started to go pale. As more and more new reports came in, he would glance at Ms. Summers as well. She, too, was locked on to the TV.

And ever since they had heard the first report, Giles had locked himself away with the phone.

Only he and Tara were not frozen.

"What's going on?" Riley finally asked the quite Wicca. "Do they know someone who works there?"

"N-n-no" Tara whispered. She knew that both Buffy and Willow had a friend in prison there, even though neither of the women would talk about it. She had seen the pictures and overheard a few conversations between them. A name, a joke he had once told. But that was all. She had put the pieces together slowly in the short time she had been with the redhead.

But she also knew that neither of the girls would want her to tell the soldier what was going one. Buffy was ashamed of something about the young man being locked up there, and Willow was just so sad when ever she and Buffy would talk about this friend of theirs. She also knew that they needed to be the one to tell him.

*Wilkins*

The prison was going insane.

Xander looked out of the windows of the chapel again. Behind him, the muted cries of a few of the office workers sounded.

Then Xander looked across the room to Faith.

Who would have thought that they would be on the same side again?

Faith had been sent here a few months ago. And he had to admit, it was a shock to come across her the first time. Both had to see the Prison Shrink for rage management issues.

Usually, the prison officials didn't want prisoners of the opposite sex to meet up but the Shrink had thought that it would be a good idea for them to meet. They were about the same age, and had also stayed in the same town. He hoped that they would bond and help each other. And with them being of the opposite sex, he thought it might cultivate a feeling of protectiveness from Xander that would cut through the rage he had been showing lately and bring out a bond from Faith that she had not shown to anyone since she had been locked up here.

But the meeting didn't really go as planned.

After the first meeting, Xander spent another week in the hole, while Faith had been likewise punished. But soon, they were forced to meet each again, and then again. Always in a controlled settings.

And soon, they at least gained some tolerance for each other. It soon became something for them to look forward to - someone who KNEW what the real world was like, about the monsters that lived under the beds. Someone that they could drop their shields around, even if they had to listen to the shrink go on and on about feelings.

They would sit and smirk at each other, and it had gotten to a point where they had almost evolved a language, just based on looks and smiles. It had been a fun time, but neither one would admit to it.

They had gotten along so well that the doctor had set them up in the 'Scared Straight' program. It was another fun thing for them to do. Bring in a few young punks who thought they were tough, the same ones that used to terrorize Xander in high school and get a free range on yelling and screaming at them, telling them horror stories of being locked up.

In other words, good clean fun.

At least for him and Faith.

The riot had kicked off while Xander and Faith had been with the kids from the scared straight programs. Faith had a group of six girls and Xander was with the boys. Surprisingly, Xander could intimidate the kids into listening and Faith could talk her kids into tears. It was kind of fun for the duo. And it got the kids off the streets and into their homes again and away from the evil that ran the underworld.

So it was worth it.

Another crash in the hallway.

The people behind them jumped again.

Faith was rubbing her bloody hands, trying to clean them off. She had beaten a lot of inmates senseless getting to the chapel.

Xander looked down at his own hands, which were just a bloody as Faith's. Maybe more so. He knew for a fact that he had killed at least one person on the way here.

"So, this looks like this is it," Xander said, looking back toward the people, and then to the door.

He knew what was happing to the guards that the prisoners caught. The screams of a few could still be heard. The rioters knew that if and when the Warden gained control again, that most if not all of the prisoners would get at least twenty years added onto their sentences and since most of the rioters came from the Castle, where all the lifers were sent, it wouldn't really matter to them.

So they were getting payback on all the people that disrespected them. That was something no one in prison could let slide. It was as if every evil came boiling up and had taken hold of everyone here. And that blackness just drove everyone into darker and darker acts.

"Yep," Faith acknowledged. "Always thought I would be taken out by a demon or vamp. Kind of a let down to lose to a bunch on cons. And ya know what really sucks? I haven't had a man in over a year!"

"Man, that's just bad," Xander said with mock concern. "Not having sex for a year? I haven't had any since Sunnydale."

"Oh, I've had sex," Faith replied, grinning at the man. "Just not with a man."

Xander stopped, looked Faith over, then started to laugh. Soon, Faith joined in with him.

"At least I'll die with a friend," Xander said, looking her in the eyes.

"Friends 'til we die," Faith nodded and whispered back as the main door groaned as it was stuck again.

It groaned again louder as it started to splinter. One more blow, and the door gave way and prisoners poured in. The people behind the two defenders screamed out.

Xander and Faith looked at each other once again, a smirk on their faces and charged in.

This was graduation all over again for Xander.

A few against the many.

To fight and most likely die defending the innocent.

At least, he would go out swinging.

Faith was a whirlwind, her fists and kicks striking out and knocking men and a few women around the room. And while the Slayer was stronger than a normal human, she had also been starved while in lock-up. It had not been an intentional act on the part of the admiration of the prison, but the amount of food to keep a slayer running was far more than a normal human would need.

Faith took a moment to glace over at Xander. She could remember the goofball from Sunnydale - all arms and legs and not able to throw a punch to save his life. Now he was an extremely vicious fighter. He had learned to fight the hard way here – jail house brawling was not a pretty sight. Gouges and kicks were the norm, anything that would take a man down fast, hard and finally.

They had almost been pushed back to the civilian when the first gun shot ran out. Xander could fill his hart rising. Maybe they wouldn't die, after all.

As soon as the gunshot rang out, most of the prisoners dropped to ground. Most out of habit, a few because of being hit.

Soon, it was only Faith and Xander standing in the room, both out of breath and gasping.

"Boy-toy," Faith called out looking him over. "If I wasn't going to be lock-up over in the pink section," part of the prison for women inmates, "I would so rock your world tonight."

Xander just grinned.

"We can dream," he whispered. Then, looking at the door, all color fled from his face when he saw who was standing in the doorway.

Stein.

The man who had almost fed him to a vampire.

Stein was the first one through the door, a grin on his fat face as he saw the two Sunnydalers standing there.

He had been given a lot of money to kill these two. They had both stood up the Wolfram and Hart and both had walked away.

Now it was time to pay.

His orders were to kill the girl first. She would be the hardest to kill. Then he'd kill the boy.

The cop looked over his should, and he could make out his brother standing there, keeping the more honest men out in the hall.

As he turned around, his shot gun coming up, he aimed at the dark-haired woman and called out, "On your knees!"

To Xander, time slowed down.

He could see Faith freezing. She wasn't moving and Stein's weapon kept moving at her. Xander could almost see the fingers tightening on trigger.

{ No, not a Slayer, } Xander thought, as he watched everything in slow motion. { Not my friend. Not again. }

Then a voice whispered in is head, { Then do something.}

"Faith!" Xander called as he ran toward the woman.

He hit her at a full run, just as a loud bang rang out in the large room.

Faith felt the bite of the buckshot in her arm. Scooting over into a sitting position, she looked up at the still standing Xander, blood spots forming on his chest where the shot had gone through his body.

His eyes dazed looking down at her.

"Guess I don't get another ride huh Faith?" she said.

Then he coughed, a string of blood slipping from his mouth. He smiled at her, his teeth stained with blood.

He slowly sank to his knees.

"Hey, Tell my girls, I'll waiting for them."

Then he drew in a sharp breath.

"You, too. Never forget. Friends forever."

Then before Faith's unbelieving eyes, Xander drew in another gasping breath, then fell to the floor. His eyes locked onto Faith's as she started to call his name.

Her words sounded muffled, the sounds distorted like someone playing with a tape player first. The words were fast, then got slower and slower 'til they were gone. Before it was completely gone, he thought he heard someone screaming to stop shooting.

Then his vision started to play tricks on him.

Faith would go in and out of focus, then it was like he was looking at her as he fell backward down a long hallway. He was moving away from her very fast and his breath started to gasp from his chest and it seemed that fluid was in his lungs.

And then he didn't see anything.

Buffy and Willow still hadn't moved from in front of the tv.

Every few hours, another report would break in about the riot, along with detailed descriptions about another prisoner being held at the prison.

And with each report, the two girls saw what kind of hell their male friend was in.

Buffy looked over at her mother as she stood in the door way.

Behind her, in the kitchen, she could make out the large figure of her boyfriend. He was helping Tara fix a snack for them.

She felt bad about not talking to him, but she just couldn't.

How to tell someone that you're the cause for someone - a very important someone - being locked up for the rest of their lives.

And now, they were dead.

All because of her.

He had died a long slow death.

All because of her.

How could she look at Riley with him knowing that about her?

"Breaking news," the announcer started. "The riot at Wilkins prison is over! It was retaken in within the last few hours, with minimal life lost.

"But still, this riot is going to go down in the record books as one of the bloodiest ones in history. Fifteen Guards lost their lives and an equal number of civilian workers. Also seventy-five prisoners were killed as well, most of them by other prisoners.

"The last of the resistance took place in the prison chapel, where two prisoners stood off against a number of other prisoners all to protect the unarmed workers of the jail. Unfortunately, one of the prisoners was killed when a guard's weapon misfired.

"The names of the fallen guards and workers will be released as soon as next of kin are notified, while if you visit our web sight the prisoners' names that have been identified have already been released. Once again, the stand off at the Wilkins Prison is now over. Now back to your regular programming."

Tara sat behind the coffee table. She had walked in at the end of the report and was pulling up the lists from the station's website. She glanced up at her two friends, both looking at her hoping, that she wouldn't find a name.

She looked again at the small screen and started scrolling though the names 'til -

Alexander L. Harris { Dead. }

She looked up again at her lover and her friend and swallowed.

In the kitchen, Riley had just pulled some brownies from the oven. He jerked around as Willow's scream broke from the living room.

Over the next three days, everything that happened came out - how the riot started over an inmate wanting another serving of peas.

Joyce sat up, watching her girls crying. Willow wouldn't leave her position in front of tv. The redhead knew that someone had made a mistake and her childhood friend was still alive - she could feel it.

Buffy had sat around, not much better than her friend.

Tara helped as much as she could but there wasn't much she could do to help either of them. She would pray for her friends' loss and hope for the best, but something like this took time.

Giles had come and gone over the last few days, doing his best to find out what had happened.

After his last trip out, he had found out that Xander and Faith had stood down twelve or thirteen prisoners. They had fought to protect a group of teens and civilians.

At the cost of Xanders life.

One of the volunteer Police groups led by one of the Corrections Officers had found them.

And had accidently shot Xander killing him, and wounding Faith. If not for the fast actions of a Priest, Faith would have died as well. The priest had yelled out for everyone to stop.

And that very act surprised everyone enough that all fighting stopped.

Then came the news that Xander's parents wouldn't claim his body. Instead, they would let the prison cremate his body and spread his ashes in the desert around the walls.

"I want my boy brought home," Was all that Joyce said on the matter.

"I wish that I could," Giles whispered back, looking at the girls in the living room. "They seem to have lost his body."

"WHAT!?!" Joyce screamed. "Giles, I have stood by and watched this damn fight break up my family. I have seen YOUR Council send a young man to jail, just so my little girl could go out at night and fight and bleed to keep this world around, while I sit here and wait for some night when she doesn't come home. Or when she does and it's not her anymore.

"But I will NOT accept that I will not be able to bury my boy! You WILL get his body and bring him home to his family. Do YOU understand me?"

"What?" Joyce almost snapped, looking around the room at the stunned faces of her children. Her voice was calm, and you couldn't even tell she had snapped at a pale-faced Giles.

"Joyce," Giles said calmly, "that boy was like a son to me. He was the bravest man that I know. But he's gone.

The person I talked to said that in all likely events, he has already been cremated and his ashes were spread. They have lost a lot of paperwork, they had bodies that haven't yet been identified. He just slipped through the cracks. There is just no body to get."

"Dawn, go to your room," Joyce said to her youngest daughter, who promptly obeyed.

She knew that tone of voice and didn't want to be in the same area when her mom got rolling.

"Who's Dawn?" Giles asked, confused.

Then he remembered the young lady.

Just as Joyce lit into him


	5. Chapter 5

He was terrified.

That's it - terrified. He had awoken so scared he couldn't put it together enough to say how scared he was. It had taken him at least ten minutes to calm down to being *only* terrified.

He had died.

He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. He could remember feeling the shot-gun blast hit his chest. Remember tasting the blood in his mouth. He even saw the white light.

And then - he was back.

He had awoken half an hour ago to find he was wrapped in a dark plastic bag. And he had panicked, screaming 'til he couldn't make a sound.

And then he heard THEM. Creatures in the darkness around him.

He'd frozen, not moving even when he was moved around. It was then that he noticed that they were using English, and a few minutes later, he put it together that they were doctors working on other prisoners.

For how long he really laid in that black hell, he didn't know. He just hoped no one would open his bag. But, at the same time, he hoped that they would.

The terror kept building up more and more. And then the voices were gone.

He wait a few minutes to make sure that they were really gone, then pushed the bag around, probing it 'til he found the zipper to the bag.

Forcing the zipper open, he found he was laid out in a tent with a lot of other bodies. That was just more proof that he had died. He saw guards with prisoners, and all the bodies laid out in a neat rows, his being the last one to be looked at.

Was he a vampire now?

He didn't know. He didn't feel evil. He didn't feel like running around killing anyone.

Other that Stein asshole, that is. But hey, the guy HAD shot him.

And he had been going to shoot Faith.

Faith.

Where was she?

Was she looking for him with a stake in her hand? Was Buffy? Would they kill him now that he was – not dead?

That was when he noticed. They had taken his clothes.

He was naked. In a room full of dead people. Now that just freaked him out in a whole new way.

Just then a someone walked into the tent. The woman was wearing doctor scrubs and looking at a file in her hands, not really noticing what was going on around him. In fact, she walked right by Xander before stopping and looking up.

The woman froze.

Then her head slowly turned, looking over her should to look at the standing naked Xander.

"Hello," Xander said with a low friendly voice, and his best 'let's be friends' smile.

The woman's eyes widen, dropping the file and she jumped at a nearby desk, knocking files to the floor. She turned, holding up a cross.

And the same time she was yelling, "VAMPIRE!"

Xander just stood there as the girl waved the cross at him.

As Xander watched the excited woman, three things became apparent.

One, that he wasn't a vampire, 'cause the cross didn't bother him.

Two, it was annoying to have a cross waved in your face.

And three, if she didn't stop with the screeching, someone would show and lock him back up.

Looking around and listening to noise the doctor was making, Xander came to one conclusion.

He punched the woman.

Who hit the ground and didn't move.

"Glass jaw," he mumbled, looking at the woman.

Xander, who was used to sparing a little with Buffy and getting his butt kicked, had put most of his strength behind the hit.

It had taken him ten long minters after that to get out of the tent, which had been set up outside the walls of the prison, and across the small field and in the salt flats. He had only stopped long enough to grab up some clothes from a pile where the examiners had cut them from the bodies of the dead, since the female doctor's scrubs were WAY too small to wear.

He was three miles out into the salt flats before the sun broke over the horizon and he was still running.

He didn't know where he was running to - just that he was getting away from here.

Maybe he could go back to Sunnydale. If vampires and demons could hide there, why not him?

~~~

It was close to mid day when it happened.

He started to get light headed, then dizzy.

His mouth was dry. Then the cramps hit, causing him to scream out and fall to the ground.

Then it was night again.

Gasping as he sat up, he realized he felt better. The cramps were gone and he was strong again. He was healthy.

The same way he had felt when he had awoken in the body bag.

That was when he knew.

He had died.

Again.

Xander almost fainted. He started to hyper-ventilate. His eyes widened, and he wanted to scream, but only a squeak came from his dry throat.

I am a monster.

I was dead.

Now I am not.

"I am *so* going to get killed," he mumbled to himself, thinking about Buffy and Faith hunting him down and killing him.

There was no way that he was going back to Sunnydale now.

~~~

Sunnydale

Buffy and Willow walked into the room as quietly as they could.

The prison hospital's grey walls seemed to pull any joy or happiness from their souls. Not that the two had much to happy about.

With Xander dead, it seemed that part of their soul had gone with him.

Their friend had died in these halls.

They had came here in response to a request.

A request from someone that wouldn't have asked them a few short months ago.

And to be honest, they wouldn't have come if not for her being the last person to talk to their dead friend.

Faith sat up in a bed, the chain on her wrist cuff clinking, while the doctors looked her over and the courts listened to the people that survived in the Chapel.

The Catholic Church had taken Faith to heart and with Father Faraday, the prison priest, in the lead, they were fighting to get the girl freed.

And the Council was moving behind the scenes also. They wanted to get another Slayer in the field, and even if she wasn't as controllable as Buffy, she would die soon enough for them to get another slayer.

"B," Faith said after a pause. "Red, how's it hanging?"

"Faith," Willow said softly.

"You were the last person to talk to him?" Buffy asked. They really didn't need to say who the him was, as all in the room knew who they were talking about.

"Yep." Faith said simply, her face going dark as she remembered the sightless eyes looking back at her with that stupid smile.

"Is he really dead?" Willow asked. She had been casting tracking spells for the last couple of days, and while she could find him, it didn't give her the signs that he was dead.

"Yea," Faith said softly. "Seen it with my own eyes."

"How?" Buffy asked.

"The stupid fucker jumped in front of gun so I wouldn't get killed," Faith replied, guilt on her face. "You know we got to be friends in here, right?"

Faith paused as she looked at the girls again, then out the barred window.

"Stein was there - he broke in to the chapel. He drew down on me and all I could see was that big barrel and I KNEW I was gonna die," she said quietly.

"Then X was there. He jumped between me and the gun, took the whole shot to the back." She waved at the bandages on her arm. "These came through him. He told me to tell you he'd be waiting for us on the other side - His girls."

Then Faith did something that neither of the visiting women thought they would ever see.

She started to cry.

Willow lost track of things.

One minute she was standing, looking at Faith and listening to the last moments of her brother in all but blood; the next she was holding on to Faith crying with her, while Buffy stood on the other side, holding the dark Slayer's hand.

"How was he like in here?" Buffy finally asked. She had sent him here, after all. And her last few visits were kind of strained.

Faith smirked and laughed, and started to talk about what she knew of the Goofball. Buffy and Willow even smiled, every now and then. It was a bittersweet conversation.

After a while, a dark cloud interrupted the conversations.

"What happened to Stein?"

"Don't know," Willow replied, shaking her head. "He got a job, moved away from Sunnydale and never came back."

"Ya don't know where?" the dark-haired girl asked. Once she got out, some payback was due and she was going to collect.

"No, Giles just about had to sit on Buffy to keep her from going after the man," Willow said, looking over at her friend. "I still think you should have knocked him out and gone after him."

"Mom and Giles cornered me and made me promise," Buffy pouted. "They even got Dawn to sit guard one night."

"Dawn?" Faith asked, but even as she asked, she remembered.

Dawn.

Little D.

She could remembered the panicked call from Xander who was babysitting the girl, when Aunt Flo showed up for the first time. Little D was locked in the bathroom, and Xander couldn't leave her, but he couldn't help, either. And Buffy and her Mom were both in LA for some reason she couldn't remember.

So he man-ed up and called Faith. It had became their little secret. Faith had both of them promise not to say anything about it, on pain of death if they let anyone know that Faith would actually helped people with out getting something in return.

Over the next few hours, the Slayers and Witch reconnected, at least as far as admitting that they liked a dark haired boy.

A boy all three would miss.

A few minutes after Buffy and Willow walked out, Giles walked in. He stood at the door.

"I can't stop you, can I?" he asked, looking down at Faith.

"No. Where is he?" Faith almost growled.

"I don't know." Giles replied quietly.

"If you're lying. . ."

"He's gone. That's all I know," Giles said sadly. "Faith, you are going down a dark road again. I would remiss not to point that out. Let the police handle it. Your starting to walk down that dark road again. And you might not be able to return again, Xander wouldn't want you to that."

"Let the cops handle it like they handled everything else? That bastard killed him. That COP was going to kill me!," Faith snarled, "Xan was a friend."

And with that simple statement, Giles knew she would not stop.

Buffy and Willow were sad and would not even have killed Stein if they had been there when Xander was killed. Now, after they had had time to cool down, they wouldn't even think about it.

Faith, on the other hand…

~~~

Stein looked around his office.

It was an okay office, and better than the one he had in Sunnydale. But it was well below what he deserved. He had killed the boy for the lawyers and would have kill the girl as well, if not for that damn priest getting in the way.

He couldn't kill a priest in a room full of witnesses, could he?

At least, not without killing everyone there.

And since the little bastard and the bitch didn't have any guns, he couldn't blame them. It had fallen apart too fast for him to keep up.

But at least Lila Morgan had gotten him out of California and this new job.

He was Head of security of the 'Devil's Deals' casino. It was small compared to the others on the strip, but it pulled in more than all of them combined.

And not in just money.

The Devil's Deals had been in Las Vagus since the beginning of the town. Hell, it had been here from the beginning of time, set up on the original cross roads in the town and long before they paved the streets here.

A Cross Roads Demon had set up shop, granting wishes to anyone who came in, and it ran the Casino.

And now the demon didn't have to wait for people to summon him. He had all the wishes he wanted right here and they came to him. Then they would leave, going home to die in seven years when the deals ended.

Stein really had no problem with that. Hell, if the suckers wanted to deal with evil, who's fault was it when they ended up in hell?

He just wished he could get his hands on that little slut that caused him to come here.

~~~

Xander walked the camp site.

Bodies were thrown around like so much trash. Clearly, a vamp attack. Or at least some kind of demon.

He sat down and dug through the supplies that the family had brought with them on the camping trip.

Water was his first target. Quickly, he settled his thirst. He then hunted for something to eat and found some power bars in the bottom of bag in the back of what was left of a tent. He then got rid of his bloody rags, grabbing some more acceptable clothes from what was left in the tent.

As soon as he was dressed and his stomach was full, he was ready to move out. He would head away from Sunnydale.

No way could he go back there. His friends would kill him. Or at least, they would try.

Then it really hit him.

He wasn't human.

Something had snuck into his soul and changed him. How soon would it be before he started wanting to kill people? How soon before he turned into a complete monster?

As he thought that, he looked around him at the bodies. How soon before he started to do this to people? His eyes rested on what was left of a young girl. Her red hair was matted down with dry blood and other unnameable liquids.

Xander took off running.

He was monster.

He would hurt her.

His Willow.

He just knew it.

Willow, Buffy and Faith wouldn't be safe around him.

In his blind run, he tripped over an outcropping of rock, throwing him down a sharp gully. He heard more than felt his ankle snap, and then his arm as he caught himself.

As he rolled to a stop, the pain was already stopping. And within a few minutes, it was gone.

The bones were healed.

"What am I?" he whispered to himself. Then louder - "What am I?"

He screamed out to the sky, "WHAT AM I?"

But of course, the sky didn't answer his cries.

Only the wind comforted the sobs coming from the boy in the gully.


	6. Chapter 6

The wind-blown sand whipped through Xander's hair as his motorcycle shot down the desert road. Around him, the rest of his brothers, the roar of their own hogs echoing behind them.

The Sons of The Reaper was a small but powerful biker club. Okay, technically speaking, they weren't really what you would call a club – they were a gang, if you really got down to it. Not as near as bad as other gangs out there, but still, you didn't want to mess with them.

He felt the arms of the young girl riding behind him wrap tighter around his waist, as he fed more fuel to the big motor as he took off down the road.

Linda, the Boss man's daughter, had taken to him almost as soon as he found her. She was the reason he was a member of the Club. And one of the few reasons he had to stay sane.

They were all heading for Las Vegas, 'cause Linda's birthday fell on the weekend of the annual club's blow out, when members from all around the country would show up and talk about what's going on in their territories. It was because of that that Boss man had decided this would be a family trip - everyone would bring their kids and have fun. It would also keep the local cops off theirs asses as well, 'cause nobody in their right mind would cause trouble if they had their family with them.

Linda's mom was riding right behind them - her and the rest of the families, (at least the ones with kids) were all in cars and vans following them. Xander could feel Linda's mom, Shirley's, eyes on him when she had a line of sight on him. It had taken a while but Shirley had gotten to like the young man. Most mothers had a problem with a twenty-something guy hanging around a thirteen year old girl, but then, most girls hadn't had what happened to Linda happen to them.

And even Shirley knew that Xander would never hurt her little girl. Yeah, he was still male and around her little girl, but after what had happened...

*****Flash back****

Xander was looking down at the people moving around below him - or not moving, as the case may be.

There were three boys and one girl. The girl couldn't have been over fifteen, if that. Xander had snuck up on the party in hopes of possibly stealing something - food, drink, clothes, anything he could get his hands on. He was running on empty and knew that it wasn't going to last.

If he was lucky, maybe he could even steal one the trucks here and head on down to Mexico, like Butch and Sundance did, but without the jumping off cliffs thing. He knew that he would survive something like that, but it would still sting a little.

Hell, it would sting a lot.

As he moved behind the trucks, he could make out what the guys were saying more clearly. One was holding a book up while another was holding a dagger. The young girl was laid out on the ground, nude and unconscious, her body battered and bruised. And from the look of things, the guys had just finished using her. The messy stains between the young girl's legs and the half tucked in clothes the guys were wearing told the story, and it wasn't a very nice one, at all.

"I'm telling you, it should have worked!" Dickhead number one was saying, holding the book up.

"Yeah, but it didn't," Dickhead number two replied. "He should have appeared and granted up our wishes."

"Well," Dickhead number three said, looking down at the girl, "Maybe she wasn't a virgin. She does hang around that biker gang. One them might have taken a shot at her." He used his foot to push the girl over on her side.

As the young girl rolled over, her hair fell away, revealing her face.

Xander paused, looking at her in shock as he finally caught a glimpse of her features.

"Dawn?" he whispered, as the images of Buffy's little sister flowed into his mind.

It only lasted a few seconds and he immediately realized that the girl wasn't her, but the thoughts of what these assholes had done to her set him in motion.

These - people - had hurt her. They weren't demons, or vampires or any other type of monster he knew. But they still had hurt this young girl, taken away her innocence, to do a spell - to grant themselves power.

And they hadn't even done it right.

Xander started to walk up to warn them, and as he passed the trucks, he noticed a shovel laying in the bed of one.

With a few quick steps, he was standing behind Dickhead number two, who was holding the dagger.

"So her father never gave you guys the shovel speech, huh?" Xander said as loud as he could, while bringing the flat steel blade down across the back of the head on the guy holding the dagger. "Too bad."

The crunch of the asshole's skull breaking caused both other men to jump. Dickhead number three took off running, while Dickhead number one, the guy with the spell book fell to his knees and pleaded for Xander not to hurt him.

"Please? Stop?" Xander mimicked. "Did she plead with you?"

Just one look at the guy's face and he could see she had. It sealed the guy's fate. He drove the blade into the man's neck as he screamed at him.

"You protect the girls!" Xander yelled. "You protect them!" It was one of those macho things, one of the few good rules his dad had, and it had been driven into him from an early age.

Xander turned as snarled at the sight of the last man running away - he was almost out of sight in to the desert. Pulling back the shovel, he felt it, that rumble deep down inside, that thing that was keeping him alive. It was supercharging him and he left it fly.

Now, normally, shovels in no way were meant to fly or be thrown. But if you throw something hard enough, no matter what it was, it would still fly.

The strength of Xander's throw might have even equaled to Buffys' right at that moment. He didn't know. He only knew that the shovel hit the fleeing man blade first right between the shoulder blades and the shape blade of steel drove into the man, severing the spine and splitting his heart into two equal parts.

It was then that Xander realized what he had done.

He'd killed people. Not monsters, but people!

"I'm turning into a monster," he whispered, dropping to his knees before throwing up.

He then noticed the girl watching him.

"Help me," she whispered, like her very voice hurt her. "They hurt me."

It had taken Xander a hour to get the girl dressed and into one of the trucks. He dragged the bodies off and buried them in a small grave together.

The shovel speech - he had been given it one time by Willow's Father and he had heard variations of it over the years. Even Joyce had given him one about Buffy, even though he never gone out with her. But this was the first time that he knew of that it had ever actually been followed through on.

And after helping the young girl, Linda, into the truck, he could honestly say he didn't feel bad at all about killing those three bastards.

A few hours later, he had pulled up to a large home. There were motorcycles all over the yard, and to be honest with himself, it kind of scared Xander. He had grown up listening to the tales of his mom and dad and Uncle Rory about outlaw bikers. And now this young girl wanted to walk up to the house of one - one that from what it looked like was throwing one hell of a party.

At the door, the girl knocked, and Xander had to hold her up so she could walk and stand there. And as the door opened, Xander found himself looking almost at the belt buckle of the biggest man he had ever seen. It was like a cross between a Wookie and a Grizzly Bear.

And before he could say anything, a large hand was pinning him against the wall, holding him almost two feet off the ground and letting him look into the flattest eyes he had ever seen on a human.

"What happened to my kid?"

"Well, damn," Xander thought as the hand tightened around his neck.

It had taken over three hours to calm the big man down and get the rest of the men there off of Xander. Little Linda was the Boss man's daughter and the darling of the club. She had been raised by just about every man there. She was as close to an Angel in these men's eyes as anything could be.

Linda's mother and the rest of the women had dragged off the girl to the back room after they had given the men a significant look.

"Where are the assholes that did this?" a big man asked, a patch on his leather vest saying Sgt of arms.

"You know the shovel speech?" Xander asked, looking around the room, trying to not look at the men here and hoping he didn't see the look coming his way himself. It would be a bitch to dig out of grave like some newbie vamp.

"Yeah," another one of the men said, as the Boss man looked on.

"Well. Then you know what happened."

They had kept him around for a few days afterward, to make sure what he had said was true. And they had looked into who he was. It was tight going for a while, but it had finally come down to a few undisputed facts: Xander had saved Linda, and Linda was a daughter of the club.

The Club owed him.

From there it had taken Xander a short time to work his way up from prospect to member. He was a junior member, but a member, nonetheless.

The biggest day he had was when he was dragged from his bed in the club house in the middle of the night into The Hall, the one place he had never been allowed, a place that only the Members had been allow. He was thrown down in front of a redwood statue of the Grim Reaper, who was holding out a cup.

"Drink from the Cup of Death," Boss Man said, smiling down at the man. "You do that and you're one of us 'til the end of time. Or you can walk out and never come back. Your choice, man."

Xander looked at the men around the room. Each and everyone of them had given up their outside family for the club. He thought back to Buffy and Willow, and all the others. He couldn't live in the past, anymore. He would never see his girls again. And the one thing that he needed and wanted more than anything was standing right here.

A Family.

And Hell, most of them were even men. Not like things were back in Sunnydale.

Xander smirked and reached for the cup, looked into the clear liquid, and then before he could sniff it, he downed the whole thing.

Then it hit him.

First the smell, then the fire in his mouth.

He fell back, some of the drink shooting out his mouth as a vest with the club colors were dropped on him.

Xander looked a little green at the laughing men around.

Jojo pulled him up saying, "You know, you're the first man I know of that ever chugged White Lighting."

And that is How Xander joined the Sons of the Reaper.

***End Flash Back***

Just then, Linda hugged him again, bringing him out of his daydream. The group was heading into a small gas station for some food and gas.

Xander smirked. He at least hoped that it was food and gas - not food with Gas. Jojo, the guy that was riding beside him, could peel the paint off the walls sometimes, and that was without help of bad food.

Linda smiled at him as she jumped from his bike and ran to her dad. The thirteen year old was finally smiling around the guys again. She was safe, and that was all that mattered. Soon, he heard the cars and trucks that had been following them pulling in. Most the cars held kids from the club members with a few of the Daughters of Death, the Bikers' Old ladies riding herd on them.

Then, he felt it again.

Not as strong, but there.

The headache was back, just like last time.

*****Flash back****

He had been on the run for the last three weeks, never stopping long enough to get noticed, just long enough to get some food and water before heading back into the desert.

It was a lonely life he had now but one that kept him out of prison and away from people. People that he might one day hurt if what had happened turned out to be a bad thing.

So far he didn't know what had happened to him. He just knew that he didn't stay dead. The heat had killed him from time to time on his walk across the desert, and thirst and hunger one time, but he just kept getting back up and walking again.

Then there was that guy at a bus stop, a few towns back. Xander had walked into the small Greyhound station to see if he could scrounge up enough money to grab a burger at a little mom and pop burger stand. Normally, he wouldn't have even thought about eating there, but it had been so long and burgers looked so good, he figured it was worth a shot.

As soon as he walked in, the headache started, and then he locked eyes with the guy.

He had long flowing hair, done up in a pony tail. And despite the temperature outside being well over 105 degrees, he was in a long trench coat. Their eyes locked across the room and the headache was gone. But there was now a feeling of power coming from the guy.

This guy could kill everyone in this room and there would be nothing he could do to stop it. He was alone and unarmed, other than a small hunting knife he had found in old camp site a few days ago.

Xander gripped the knife under his worn shirt and looked the man in the eyes.

Those eyes told him a lot. This guy was old, older than even Angel, maybe even older than The Master. And they weren't a friend to him. Not an enemy, but definitely not a friend.

As the man closed in, Xander decided that a burger wasn't worth the trouble of dealing with this guy.

"I am Connor Macleod of the Clan Macleod," the man said with an accented voice.

"Well," Xander muttered as he backed away from the man with the power coming off him in waves, "I am the Roadrunner of the Scooby Clan."

Then, after one last look at the guy to make sure he wasn't pulling a gun from his coat, he said, "Beep-Beep, Bye!" and he took off out the door, leaving a very confused Highlander looking at him.

Conner stood at the door, watching the young Immortal run off into the desert that surrounded the bus station.

"I've got to stop taking these things," he muttered to himself. He always seem to find the weird ones on buses.

Across from him, stood another traveler. The young lady slowly slid a small digital camera back into her pocket and started to write in a journal about the meeting. A small tattoo on her wrist peeked out from under her shirt sleeve as she wrote.

This is what she loved about her life - seeing history. She had seen all the report of Immortals that lived along her Immortal's route, all the way to Washington State. And her Immortal had just ran across a new one.

Well, maybe not New, but one that wasn't listed. Too bad she couldn't follow him. But there was one thing she knew, and that was Immortals never stayed out of sight for long. And her name would be the first on his Journal, if he was new, and the latest one reporting him, if not.

****

The pain stopped as soon as he laid eyes on the man. He was standing off to one side of the store talking to a couple. From what Xander could make out, he was asking for a ride. But soon as their eyes locked, both felt it.

A need.

To Xander, the man was something to get rid of, like the filth that had hurt Linda. Those eyes held pain, and blood. And most of all, evil.

"Oh shit," Xander mumbled as the man walked toward him. This guy was another old one. He didn't know what he and the few others he had found and ran from rally were, but he knew old ones when he saw them.

"John Ryder," the man said, smiling at the man.

"Xander." He had stopped worrying about anyone matching his name to who he was. The news always had referred to him as Alexander, never as Xander. Well, only a few of the tabloid news show had ran a Xander Harris story, but they didn't last long. There was always some new story about a washed-up actor falling from grace.

"Well, Xander," the man said holding open his coat to where a sawed off shot gun resting under his arm, "come with me or that sweet thing you walked in with ends up getting... hurt."

"Guy," Xander replied paling, "I don't want no trouble."

"Too bad. Move," the man snarled. "We've got business."

John pushed Xander out the back of the store. They had moved fast, but not so fast that anyone had really noticed that they were gone.

"Why?" Xander asked. He had grown up around evil in Sunnydale, and even grown used to it jail, but this was just wrong. "I don't even know what I, what we are."

John paused. This Xander was new, that much was sure. And the rules said he was supposed to take him in and train him. But John had never been one for rules. And a easy kill was an easy kill. So what if he had to kill the rest of the people here afterward. He had killed enough people in his lifetime. A few more or less wouldn't really matter to him.

Once outside, John pushed Xander ahead of him, causing the young man to fall into the dust.

Xander quickly spun around to face the dark man behind him. And with a sick fascination, he saw the man's shotgun coming up.

John looked down the barrel of the shotgun. Over the years, he had developed a technique - one that really didn't cause him that much problem. Shoot the immortal you were fighting, then take their head. So what if some of the older ones still fought with swords, and preached to each other about Honor. Screw that! The one that lived was the winner.

And John planned on it being him.

The shotgun seemed to get bigger and bigger as it moved, so it could be fired at Xander. It was now or never. Xander grabbed a handful of desert sand and threw it into the older Immortal's face.

The man flinched and that was just Xander needed. Over the years, he had fought monsters and demons, as well as other people. And always he had been the underdog. He would either have had the fight planned out, like the first night he had been locked up when the vamp came to feed on him, or he ran and hid behind Buffy. While that hadn't been the manly thing to do, it meant he was still alive in the morning.

But now, at this moment, it was him against someone that was better armed and willing to kill him and his friends in the store. There was no way he was going to let that happen.

As he fell on the guy, knocking the shotgun away, he started to punch and gouge at the man's face. He was so lost in his rage that he didn't notice the man pulling a pistol from his belt, at least not until it fired.

The .357 bullet smashed into Xander, causing him fall away from the man and then try to get away from the pain.

"Good," the man said, smiling as he got to his feet, blood dripping away from the cuts on his face as well from a smashed nose. "No one's got that close in years. Well, time for you die."

With that, he started to fire at Xander, three quick shots from the big revolver. Out front, the rest of the Sons were taking cover or getting to the wives and kids. No one knew what was going on, only that someone was shooting close by.

Each shot caused Xander to roll a little, 'til he was laying face down in the ground.

The only thing running through his head was pain. He had been shot four times, and he could feel the blood pouring out of him. He was going to die again. And this time, he might not come back. This man knew about what he was - he WAS whatever Xander was. He had to act. He watched as the man pulled a machete from under that coat.

It stuck Xander as funny, did the guy have a kitchen sink in there, too? He seemed to have everything else.

Then Xander felt it. The shotgun. He was lying on it. He tried to move but really couldn't. He was dead. He just knew it. He felt John pulling his hair to stretch out his neck.

"You know, boy?" John said as he pulled back the sharp blade, preparing to sever Xander's head from his body. "Next thing I'm gonna do is take that sweet thing of yours in there. Maybe not now, maybe I'll just follow along 'til she's on her own. Then I'm gonna have a little fun with her. Just so you know."

John started to laugh. He could hear the boy's friends moving around out front, so he knew didn't have time to play with the boy like he usually did. But the girl would make up for that. Just follow along, and after the dust settled, she would be his.

The thought of this monster getting another one of his girls, one who had already gone through so much was more than Xander could take. His hands shot to the weapon he laid upon. Grasping it, he rolled, not caring about the hair he pulled from his scalp that the man held tightly. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to kill this man before he could hurt anyone else.

Not really looking because of the tears in his eyes from the pain of the gun shot and having handfuls of hair ripped out, Xander just pointed and shot.

Now as fate would have it, as he pulled the trigger, John started to move. And whereas if John had stayed still, the shot would had hit the man in the chest, a killing blow from this weapon, but not a truly fatal one to an Immortal.

But John had moved and the 12 gauge buckshot hit the man in the neck. The lead shot chewed its way through the man's neck and out the back, leaving nothing behind. As the blood from the shot rained down on Xander, the body slowly fell to one side, while the head fell another.

Xander sat there, looking at the man's body. He didn't want this. But he couldn't walk away from someone that would hurt one of his girls.

As he watched the body, he heard the others start to call out for him. He pulled himself up; the wounds had already stopped bleeding on him and were healing. As he walked back to the front, he didn't notice the foggy mist forming around the dead man. The first thing he did notice that was wrong, was when he was when he was struck by lighting.

The pain was beyond anything he had ever felt. But it wasn't just the pain, it was the memories flooding into him. John Ryder and everything that had made the man was pouring into his soul. He could remember the man's first kill, back when people in this neck of the wood were using bows and arrows and stone clubs to fight off men with flintlock rifles. He knew the last ones lay on a road not too far from here, where a sheriff had pulled over the wrong man at the wrong time.

The pain and the rush were too much and Xander started to scream.

Soon, he didn't know anything but darkness.

*******

Three months earlier

Faith sat in the living room of the Summers home. Joyce sat back with a smile as she watched her two daughters fight over the tv. It seems that there was a fashion show on MTV that Dawn just HAD to watch and Buffy wanted to watch something on Lifetime about cheating husbands and the thing for her post Riley time.

Faith, on the other hand, didn't really care. Free food was to be had and the bonus was that it was prepared by the very good cook - Joyce Summers. On top of that, she had just gotten back from having a great time with the Wicked Wiccans - Tara and Willow.

They had formed a sort of clique when Faith had gotten out of Lock-down. The Church had pulled it off, and now she was Slaying with the best of them. She still had to go to Church every week and talk to some girls about being bad and help them out of problems if she could. But she looked at it as a penance, a debt to pay for her living and Xander dying in her place.

Then there was a knock.

Joyce looked at the girls around her, no one else moved toward the door. So she smiled to them.

"Guess I'll get it?"

"Ms. S," Faith drawled out, "learned a long time ago, never answer the door. Only bad things happen there."

Shaking her head, Joyce opened the door.

"Ms. Summers?" a man in a suit asked, holding up an ID card and badge. "Special Agent, Kevin Mayers. Is there a Faith Lehane here?"

Faith just looked at the door.

Yep, nothing but problems.

*****

Half a day later, Faith was sitting in an interrogation room in downtown LA. She didn't understand what was going on. First, they started by asking questions about how Xander had died, what she had seen, who had been there, did she see the body after the shooting, things like that. Things she would never forget.

Then they started again, question after question, about Xander: who he knew, where would he go.

Those just drove her up the wall. Xander was dead! Why couldn't they just let him rest in peace.

Then, in walked a woman with long dark hair, followed by another g-man.

"Hello, I am Marshal Collins and this Special Agent Spencer," the woman told Faith as she sat down, pulling a folder out and setting it on the table in front of them.

"Do you know were your friend Alex is?" the Marshall asked, watching Faith closely.

"Yeah," Faith replied. "He's dead. You know one of your cop buddies shot him, right?"

"I think she's telling the truth," the FBI agent told the female cop.

"At least she thinks she right," agreed the Marshal.

"You got about 10 minutes to tell me what's going on," Faith told the cops with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Xander was dead. You don't come back from that. Unless your name's Buffy.

Collins opened the folder that she had sat on the table. It was filled with papers as well as photographs.

She pulled out a picture; it was fuzzy and out of focus, but Faith could tell it was Xander. He was standing out side of a service station talking to someone.

"That was five months ago," Collins told Faith. " He's been seen all over the southeast. But a few months ago he dropped off the radar. We were wondering if you knew were to find him?"

"He's not dead?" Faith asked. "I saw him die, lady! This is bullshit! What kind of game are you two running?"

"No game," Spencer replied calmly. "He's killing people. We want him locked up before he hurts anyone again."

"Nope. Xan can't hurt anyone. He's not wired that way," Faith stated rather forcefully.

"Faith, he blew up his school. He was tied to any number of offences. And that was before he was locked up." Collins paused, then pulled out a family photo. "Here, this is the Hawkins Family. There were four of them. They went on a camping trip to the desert several weeks ago. When no one came home, the police and park rangers went searching, and they found what was left of them not three miles from Wilkins. All buried at their camp site. Only, the oldest son is still missing, and from the looks of things, he was taken."

"Yeah?" Faith said, looking at the family. No way Xan had anything to do with this.

"Janey here was found buried with some clothes that were stolen from a doctor at the prison. Those clothes had a few strands of hair and bits of blood on them. Guess who's DNA was retrieved from them?"

"Look, we're going to get him one way or another," Spence said. "You can help us and he might come out alive or he's going to be hunted, then cornered, then shot. You might even save civilian lives. "

Faith sat back, looking at both G-men. They weren't bad guys; she could tell that they just didn't know what was going on. And she knew Xander couldn't have done what they were saying he did, even if he had survived the gun shot, and then got away. HER Xander wouldn't hurt anyone unless he was protecting someone. But what if this wasn't Xander, just some demon with his face?

"What you need?" Faith finally asked.

** present day**

Faith looked around the room. It was smaller than the last one.

She was still working with FBI Agent Spencer, though Collins had moved on. Xander had been off the radar long enough that the Marshals had just given it over the FBI.

And the FBI was now using Faith as a consultant full time. Her insight into the criminals' minds plus her ties to the dark side had helped her track down and return three kidnapped kids, find four murderers and even a bank robber.

Collins and Faith had made a great team, even though she had never told him about the Dark outside. The Watchers had made it very clear that if she did that she would be removed. And she needed this - this helping people thing.

Plus, it helped her own search. She had almost found Stein a few weeks ago. And she knew that if she did, Xander would find him as well. It was something she never told Spencer about. If Xander knew where to find Stein, then that's where he would go.

And that's where she would meet him.

If it was Xander, she would help him get away or do whatever he wanted. But if it was some demon wearing his face, then it was suffer 'til the end of its short life.

"We got him," Spencer said as he flopped down on a seat across from Faith, his G-man suit contrasting with Faith's leather and denim outfit. He dropped a group of pictures in front of Faith.

More security camera shots. At first, Faith didn't recognize him - Buffed up, with biker colors on, the Sons of the Reaper written across his back with Nomad underneath.

"He killed a man there and just about blew up the gas station," Spencer was saying as Faith looked at the pictures. "Not that the guy he killed was any loss - he had been tied to multiple murders across the country."

"Yeah," Faith said distracted, staring at the picture with Xander standing with the young girl. The look on her face, it was one she hadn't seen in a long time but one she had seen for a while when she was younger and before she was Called. She had seen it on her own face. This girl had been attacked, and like her, she found someone to help her.

Faith had found Linda her first Watcher.

And this girl had found Xander.

"Oh," Faith whispered as Spencer was on the phone arranging transport, "Boytoy, what have you gotten your self into now?"

*******

Joe Dawson looked at the report on his desk.

A new Immortal had shown up and by all reports, he was a bloodthirsty one. He'd killed at least twenty people even before his first death. He was smart though; he ran from a powerful Immortal, Connor Macleod. He had finally gotten a watcher on his trail, though. He was running with a Motorcycle gang and so far he has been staying away from others of his kind.

That was a plus. Maybe he could get Mac to go after him.

This kind of monster needed to be cut out of the game before it was to late. He didn't want to see another raising like the Horsemen.

End


	7. Chapter 7

Two days had gone by and Faith still hadn't found anything out at the blow-out in Las Vegas.

Well, other than how much beer a man can drink and still look sober. Which was a lot if she took into account the tall dude she met on the first day.

She was playing the part of Biker groupie - a girl who wanted to hook up with a club. And that usually involved exchanging sex for protection and travel.

But she hadn't put out and didn't plan on it any time in the future. Not that some of these guys weren't hot, mind you. But she knew the deal with being a groupie. Once you let it happen, you were no longer really human to the club. Just something to be used when needed and then handed to the next man with a need.

And there was no way she was going there. She had seen that happen with her mother.

She turned at the sound of a laugh and the mike under her shirt bit into her breast again. She knew it was going to leave a hell of a red mark if she didn't move it, but you really can't reach down your shirt in the middle of a bunch of horny bastards and not expect them to notice her moving the mike, she reflected. After she saw the laugh was from one of the bigger men on his cell phone, she moved off to the bathroom to adjust her bra and mike. And hope that it didn't really interfere with reception in the upstairs room where Spencer and his G-men were watching on the casino cameras.

As the door closed behind Faith, a few of the men looked at it. Some were looking pissed but most were kinda amused. The FBI were pulling out all the stops with the new girl - she had the walk and the talk, but she didn't have the moves. Two days and she hadn't slept with anyone or tried to get into bed with anyone.

So, definitely not a Groupie.

But since they weren't doing anything wrong here, they let her wander around and waste taxpayer money. It wasn't like they cared. The only one hiding out was their dead man.

Xander. He had been dead when Jojo had found him.

But then he woke up.

Scared the shit out of them when it had happened. And since then, Xander had hung out in one of the undercover rooms the club always got when they had these things.

You always wanted to have a few rooms that weren't tied to you - for secret meetings, and to hide people if you needed to. It was just one of those things you do when you most of your business is illegal.

So Xander had set back and watched movies on pay-per view while his friends roared up and down the streets, getting into trouble and having fun. In short, being very bored.

Every so often, he would call up Jojo from time to time to find out about the FBI's latest. Jojo had drawn the short straw and was watch duty. His job was to watch the girl and make sure she didn't get the club into to trouble.

It had become a game to Xander, seeing what kind of comment he could make about the unseen agent and what she was doing to get Jojo, in the hopes of getting the big man to laugh. And it had finally worked, just before the girl dove into the bathroom.

But not before Jojo snapped a few pictures of the girl to go on the club's website.

The club ran a website where they posted photos of all the agents they ran across and make comments rating how good of a job they had done and how much damage they had done to the club.

It would stay up for a few days before some fed hacker would get in and crash it. They had no proof it was the feds, but who else would do it? It sure as hell wasn't the Hells Angles.

*****

Stein watched from the control booth. He was working with a group of FBI agents, much to his displeasure, sending the video feed back to the main office where still more agents watched the feed. It was then that he noticed HER.

The Slut.

The one that had caused him so much trouble. Faith Lehane.

She was walking around as free as a bird, sucking up to that trash downstairs. He knew what kind of girl she was. She rolled into Sunnydale, running around with those little bastards at school, striking up all kinds of trouble. until she caught the Mayor's eye.

Wilkins had moved her into that love shack and would visit with her, bringing her all those little toys, like she was his daughter.

But Stein knew what he REALLY was doing there - getting a little underage tail. Not that he could blame the man, really. He wouldn't mind tapping that as well. But he wouldn't move it into a apartment. He'd just use it and kick it back to the street. His own little catch and release plan. He knew what kind of girl she was and she would have been ready and willing anytime he wanted her back - all he would need do was flash a little cash at her.

But because of her, he had lost out of his gold ticket. Just a few years and he would have been able to retire with a full ride. Now he was hiding out here, just waiting for some dumb bastard to come after him because Wolfram and Hart decided that they no longer needed him around.

Watching her walk into the women's bathrooms, Stein walked over to his office. And once in there and with the doors closed, he pulled up the "Special" cameras. He sat back as the screen flipped 'til it came to rest of the Bathroom with Faith in it. He watched as she dug around in her bra, a smirk on his face. And a tingle in other parts of his body.

"That's right, bitch," he muttered. "Those bad boys getting you turned on huh? Well, we're going to find out what a real man can do for you."

He sat back smiling as a plan started to form in his mind.

Soon. Pay back.

And maybe those blood suckers at Wolfram and Hart would let him go.

Maybe even give him a bonus.

******

Xander just hung up on Jojo again. It had become his thing. The others didn't really know what had happened behind the gas station and Xander had gone a long way in not telling.

Only Bossman and Jojo knew he had died. And then came back. Both were kind of freaked at the deal but Xander was a brother to them, so they had looked the other way and not asked questions. But it was in their eyes every time he saw them. And everyone that knew him could see the otherness that had came over him.

It was a strange feeling to Xander. He knew things now; how he knew them was a little beyond him. But he knew where the knowledge came from.

Ryder.

He now knew everything that man had known. From bank accounts to what he had eaten for breakfast. And the memories just went on and on. He knew everyone of the other immortals that Ryder had taken. Their secrets, lives, loved one and hated ones.

And everyone of them fought to control him. Not in a literal since, but to color his out look on life. A darkness that wasn't there before had started to shade his life. People no longer looked like just people to him. Some turning into tools and others means to an end.

And it was scaring Xander. The more he sat in this room alone the more he lost of himself.

Xander's phone beeped. Incoming Pic from Jojo.

He looked at it as a picture filled the screen. The FBI agent that was walking among his brothers. The one that asked a lot of questions and never seemed to answer any.

Her hair had grown out since he has seen her but it was her. His finger traced across her face on the small screen.

Faith. His Faith.

Here.

And working for the man.

*****

It was close to midnight when Faith was going to call it a night.

She started to slip away from the party she was standing around in and was halfway to the door when she noticed him. How she had missed him, she would never know. But one of the bigger bikers had been standing in the background watching her. She slowly brought her beer up to her mouth, faking a swig as she looked at the guy as he turned to look around the room, looking everywhere but at her.

Then it hit her. The guy had been around her all day. At first, she though maybe it was a coincidence. But it wasn't - that little part of her that warned her of danger was screaming that she had been made.

She needed to get out.

"They're on to me," she whispered toward her mike, knowing that it would pick up her voice, as she turned toward the door again.

She headed off, moving faster and watching the men around her. Their drunken slurs and jerking movements that just a few minutes before had been almost comical now had taken on a darker turn.

Were they playing her?

She hit the road outside of the club. Looking both ways, she took off down the street, knowing that the FBI backup would be there soon. She just need to get away the club and stay in sight of the street, and the people that still walked on it.

Turning at the corner and crossing the street, she was almost across it when she felt it. Someone was watching her. It wasn't her Slaydar pinking, it was a senses she had gotten from all those years on the street. Someone was watching her.

She stopped and turned looking around, 'til she saw him standing in a dark door way a few building down. A outline she would never forget. One she had hunted for a long time.

Stein.

She started to move toward it, when a flash of bright lights hit her along with the sound of a racing motor. She had only turned a few inches when the car clipped her.

Faith's world turned on end as she was thrown through the air. She felt her leg snap on impact. And after the world settled, she saw him standing over her.

Stein.

"You bastard," she spit out at him.

HE was the reason. It was his fault that something had happed to HER Xander. Something that turned him into a killer.

HE was the reason. He would pay.

"Hello slut," Stein said politely, looking down at her as one of his men slapped on the magical hand cuff. The cuffs had been part of the Cross Roads Casino since the start. The would strip any being of their powers as long as they were locked on. Tthe Chairman had used them for years to control those creatures that try to weasel out of debts to him.

"Get her in the car."

No one noticed across the street as Jojo, standing in the shadows, started to take pictures, getting closeups of the three men picking up Faith and throwing her in the trunk. And of the Man leading them. Jojo was getting great shots of Stein, the car and the plate.

It would be something to give to the Feds when they came looking for their girl.

It was nice not to be one on hiding the bodies for a change.

*****

Xander was raging.

Someone had hurt one of his girls and he was hiding out in a motel when it had happened!

That darkness in his soul was growing faster as he looked at the pictures again. He had found out too late to stop it. But not too late to do something about it.

After another look at the pictures, he was out the door.

No one hurts his girls and gets away with it.

***

Later that day.

He was sitting on his motorcycle across from Cross Roads Casino. He knew that Stein worked there and the goons that had been with him also worked there. All of them had been seen there in uniforms at one time or another. T

he sun was setting again. It had taken him all day to ferret out the information about Stein and his group. But now he knew where they were. And all that was left was to find Faith. He had watched the FBI pile around the Casino most of the afternoon. But they were pulling out. But he could feel Faith inside.

And from what he could remember about Stein, he was lazy. This would be the easiest play to keep her. And with the supernatural feel of this place, he knew the G-men wouldn't find a thing in there. So Stein had to be hiding out here and keeping Faith here as well.

The casino had electronic scramblers on it to keep signals from being transmitted outside, a security feature that would keep the players at the gaming tables and off cell phones or radios. So Xander knew and any trackers that Faith was caring would be dead.

It was just him coming to the rescue.

He had found out, in the course of his checking things out, that the casino had been rebuilt at least twice in the last forty years. And with each rebuild, more material had went into the building than it seemed to need. That would be a sure sign that they had put more there than what the public was told.

He just needed to find a way into it.

***

Faith screamed. Another blow came in from the shadows, knocking her to the ground. The cuffs biting into her wrists, her broken leg bent again. No matter how great slayer healing was, it needed to be set to heal right. And with the cuff cutting the healing down to just a little faster than human, with each blow to pain would shoot threw her body.

Stein had been there when she had awoken. Gloating over her, slapping her and calling her names. She knew the type of man he was. Soon he would go from the gloating to the touching, and then to other things.

If the FBI didn't find her soon, she was going to take a long time dying.

****

It had taken Xander almost an hour of watching and a whole lot of money, but he had found it. Thank god for those hidden bank accounts that Ryder had or he wouldn't have even gotten through the doors.

But he finally found it, a door in the back of the high stakes tables that didn't match up with the building. The door seemed to open up into the air over the pool but people kept walking through it, and it seemed no one noticed it, or at least were not paying any attention. That and the vampire watching the door was a dead giveaway.

It was time to take his girl back.

But the problem was, he was unarmed. The entrances of the all casinos held hidden metal detectors and this one also had some wards in scripted into the wood working. There was no way he could had brought a weapon with him.

Xander looked down at his hand. He had been sitting at the table for twenty minutes playing and watching and had won a little money. He smirked at the Aces and eights in his hand.

The Dead Man's Hand. Well, it fit.

Folding his hand, he pulled the chips and as he did, dropped a few to the floor. Bending to pick them up, he gripped on the wooden supports on the chair, snapping it as quietly as he could. As he stood up, he looked around the table at the people, most had heard the sound and were watching him.

"Well," Xander asked looking at them, then he turned and walked as fast as he could without seeming to run at the vampire.

The people watched as he drove the wooden splinter into the man's chest and after both fell behind the small counter, there was poofing sound. Then Xander came up and pushed open the door on the wall.

The Back Rooms.

It was where the casino had kept its cheaters, or cheapskates that had tried to get out of the deals made here. It was filled with small dark cells. Each one with a small locked door. And Xander just knew Faith was in here.

Faith fell back against the wall again. Her top had been pulled off and what was left of he bra hunk on one strap. Stein had just left again, going to do his 'rounds.' He was at this moment walking the floors upstairs, checking on his men. Faith wanted to cry but wouldn't give these bastards the pleasure. She had been tortured by things a lot meaner that this bunch and she wasn't about to give in.

But she knew that sooner or later, she would. No one could hold out forever.

She didn't know how long she had been there, the only thing she was certain of was it was hurting. An hour after she was locked into the room, Stein had shown up with a needle, and with that shot, her strength had gone. Along with her healing and fighting.

Stein had smiled an evil smile at her, telling her it was, "Something to control uppity bitches like you."

After that, Stein had came by every so often to gloat over her.

The door boomed, and Faith jumped.

This was new, because Stein usually just walked in.

Faith scrambled back from the door pulling herself into a ball and she almost let out a scream when the door flew open. Faith closed her eyes tightly so she wouldn't have to face what she knew was coming.

They was a thud. Followed by a familiar voice. A very familiar voice.

"Oh, Faith. What have they done to you?"

Faith peeked and Xander stood at the door. His shirt was covered in blood, his long hair messed.

"Xan?" Faith asked, looking down at what had made the thud. The body of one of the guards that had hurt her lay by her feet. He was slashed from throat to belt, his eyes looking sightlessly up. Her eyes then traveled up to Xander's. Those eyes that could say so much, that used to hold a innocence even after being locked down. Those eyes which would show a care about people that she never had seen in anyone's eyes.

But now those eyes showed only a darkness, a rage.

"Who hurt you?" His voice was cold. Behind him, he could hear cops shouting. Someone must have called in the PD.

"Stein," Faith whispered as she, too, heard the cops.

Along with the voice of Spencer calling for her.

"Don't worry, baby girl." Xander said. "He's not going hurt anyone ever again.

"No one hurts my girls."

And with that, he turned and walked out of the cell.

****

"Stein, you idiot," the Chairman said as he stood by the big man, the chairman's eyes going black as night. "First you bring a Slayer here, and now the cops are looking for her, along with the FBI. And some cowboy is blowing threw spells and wards that took years to get into place.

"And all this happened without a word to me about what your doing!"

"Sir," Steins replied as sweat broke out on his forehead, "I didn't know this would happen. I, I, I was just fulfilling a contract I had with Wolfram and Heart."

"And that is the only reason you're still living," the Chairman said, his current body smoothing out her top. "You will handle this. NOW!"

Stein all but ran from the office, gasping as he reach the main floor. Scanning the room, he could make out the tv crew from a local station doing a puff piece about a little old lady that won a million dollars, a sure way to get more suckers in to spend their money.

Just then, the one of the back room door opened.

And HE walked out.

Harris.

Stein froze. The boy was dead but here he was, walking into the crowds on the floor.

He knew it wasn't magic because Wolfram and Heart would have had told him.

Right?

****

Across the room, Xander scanned the people, paying close attention to the staff.

Stein was here somewhere and he had hurt Faith.

And now, it was time to pay back pain with PAIN.

"Freeze!"

Xander stopped short, looking over his shoulder at one of the rent-a-cops that worked the doors here. But what got him more than anything was Stein standing behind the want-a-be-cop.

"Got you, motherfucker," Stein snarled pulling out his weapon as well, a large hand gun.

"You're dead, Stein," Xander said calmly, turning to face the men as more guards came out of the crowds.

Across the room, the news crew had turned the camera to the stand off, too far to hear what was being said but close enough to see it in all its detail.

"I don't think so, boy," Stein said smiling. "One way or the other, you're going into the ground tonight."

"Been there, done that," Xander muttered.

And the he charged.

***

Of all the actions Stein and his men were ready for, this wasn't one of them. They'd expected him to run or give up. Not attack.

That moment of shock was all Xander needed to get up close to Stein. But as fast as he was, he was slower than the bullets that flew at him from Stein's weapon.

Xander could feel trails of fire as the chunks of lead blew through his body, but his momentum still carried him onto Stein. Knocking the gun away, he grabbed hold of the man, grasping him around his neck and then squeezing. Xander could feel the other guards kicking and punching him - one had even pulled a taser and was jabbing him with it.

But he wasn't going to stop. Nothing could make him. This animal had hurt one of his girls. Hurt her bad. And he was going to pay.

Then it happened. He was looking into the ex-cop's eyes as they darkened, and then he finally heard a snap as the bones finally gave out.

"Mother fucker!" Xander snarled as he spat in the body's face before allowing the guards to pull him away from Stein. Only to start fighting them once he as on his feet again.

Blood was running down his chest and he looked like every bit of a mad man. It was then he saw her.

Faith leaning on some man in a FBI blazer. She was safe. Xander smiled at her.

He knew there was no way out. If he gave up now, he would be back in a jail cell for the rest of his life and, giving how long he could live, it would be a very long time.

Looking at Faith, his smile changed, as an idea formed in his head. Not a good one, he knew, but it was all he could think of at the time.

Faith saw the change, and her world stopped. He was going to do it.

"No, Xan!"

Just as she yelled, Xander charged at some cops waving the gun that he had pulled from Stein's hands.

He made it three steps before he was cut down in a hail of gun fire.

It was the only way out of this.

Faith was safe and he would wake up later to make his escape.

As he lay back on the ground, his life blood flowing from him, he started to laugh.


End file.
